Valentina Shevchenko believes referee Jason Herzog played a role in why she lost to Alexa Grasso at UFC 285.
In the co-main event of the pay-per-view card, Shevchenko suffered an upset submission loss to Grasso to lose her belt. It was a big upset and a surprise, and although Grasso won fair and square, Shevchenko questions why Herzog stood her up after having Grasso on the ground.
“You asked me how I felt during the fight, and now, thinking about that, I think some kind of small situation, like what happened in the fight could affect performance, or how you feel,” Shevchenko said on The MMA Hour. “For example, before right now, I never thought about this, but it’s very clear in my mind, a few actions that the referee did in the fight, I completely don’t understand why he did that. Because he was refereeing my two last fights, and first fight, with Taila [Santos] in Singapore, I thought it could be the situation or something like this, but there was a combination where I strike and ended the combination with a head kick, and I felt Taila [got hurt] and I wanted to finish the fight, but he stopped the fight and he let her breathe. I was like, ‘OK, this doesn’t sound right, but maybe it was just the…
